Nina Khaghany said her younger self would struggle to believe that one day, she would run a marathon.
“Running is always something I admired,” Khaghany, MCAS ’24, said. “I never thought I’d be doing it though because I hated it my whole life, but I fell in love with it in college.”
Khaghany, from West Bloomfield, Mich., said she has always been athletic but never considered running a marathon until she picked up running in college. When she decided to run the 2022 Boston Marathon, Khaghany considered and researched multiple charities for which she would run and fundraise, she said. The Doug Flutie Foundation connected her to Family Reach, an organization dedicated to providing financial support to cancer patients.
“I got to know a lot of the people who worked with Family Reach really well,” Khaghany said. “I learned how passionate individual people were with their cause, and that kind of persuaded me to work with them.”
Beyond the physical aspects of training, Khaghany said the mental aspects were the hardest part of preparing for the marathon. After waking up at 6:30 a.m. for days on end to run before attending her classes, she said that training was exhausting and that she began to question why she started training in the first place.
“Eventually, it wears on you, and you start asking yourself, ‘Why am I doing this? I’m crazy,’” Khaghany said.
Despite the mental barriers, Khaghany stayed committed to her training and fundraising. The race itself, Khaghany said, was the best part of the entire experience. She had practiced running up Heartbreak Hill many times in her training and was ecstatic to be passing campus as she neared Mile 21, she said.
“When I got to see Newton, after running all those places, it was just like, I finally made it home,” Khaghany said.
